The dishwasher has been running non-stop and now they are finally all clean. It doesn’t help anything that I have walking pneumonia and zero energy.

I also got two old (untested) pressure cookers, a rusty (salvageable) food mill and an old beat up collander with a handle. They even threw in about 3 dozen of each type of canning lid.

The price was right…they didn’t ask for anything. I ended up paying him about $50.

It sure is a lot of quarts. It’s over half quart jars, the rest are pints. I prefer pints. Want to trade?

It sure was fun to see all these different jars. Based on the newspaper packing material in the boxes, these were put away around 1985. There were lots of 1976 US bicentennial celebratory jars, and a set of “harvest time” jars that have an interesting design. There are some tall jars that will be good for uncut asparagus, a handful of jars bigger than quarts, and a whole box that aren’t canning jars at all. Oh well!

There were a dozen or so that I passed on and did NOT take home. These still had food in them. :O Yep! One jar still had recognizable red tomatoes or sauce. The others had unsealed over the years and dried down to a little tomato cake that has since turned into something like ash or dirt.

Now let me tell you the worst part! I told my wife that asking around for jars wouldn’t work. I said, “Too many people are going to be canning this year. Jars will be hard to find even at the store this summer. It won’t help to ask around.” Then she finds me this haul. Thank you hon!!

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4 responses to this post.

Hi there! Thanks for the comment on my blog! I considered what you said at one point, that maybe having too many reusable bags might be just as wasteful. I actually did look into this and found that it’s the process they use to make plastic versus reusable that’s very different. If you look into the production of 25 reusable bags versus the production of 500 plastic bags (what the average person uses in one year) – there are vast differences in chemicals used, CO2 produced, as well as how many actually end up in landfills. Also, most reusable bags are made from cloth or recycled products which will decompose better versus plastic bags which take up to 1000 years according to environmental scientists. Very few people actually throw away the reusable bags whereas we throw away 500 or more of the plastic ones each year. Experts estimate that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed and discarded annually worldwide—more than a million per minute. Furthermore, the production of plastic bags consume millions of gallons of oil that could be used for other things such as fuel or heating. Hope this helps!

Wow, what a haul! I am jealous! Check out your Cooperative Extension Service, they may offer you a pressure canner safety check (MAine does) at no cost. I actually took a canning class and found it pretty useful. Another GREAT resource is the Harvest Forum on Gardenweb. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/harvest/

Oh man, I buy canning jars every single time I find them. Because of environmental convictions, we don’t buy new retail anymore. So I frequent thrift stores a lot. I buy the jars every single time I find them. My sister just found a HUGE lot of them at an estate sale for me. 7 dozen of them! Added to the nearly 150 I already have. She told me she could get more for me from the same lady if I wanted them…um YES!! I am currently trying to find an old jelly strainer contraption. I can’t recall what they are called, but it makes turning grapes into juice for jelly pretty easy. My friend has a old one that was her grandmother’s. Jealous much.